


oh, deer

by sleeperservice



Series: Help! I’m a Witch Now, In Love With My Best Friend [2]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Animal Transformation, Forests, Gen, M/M, Magic, Portal Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 18:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19892056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeperservice/pseuds/sleeperservice
Summary: Granny's been a deer for a decade. Mikko has been trying to find the solution for almost that long.





	oh, deer

Mikael was supposed to arrive that morning, if he arrived at all. There were times in the past year where he hadn't bothered to show up at all. The time he was given to return to his human shape was only on the day of the full moon. It had been three days once, the day before and the day after the full moon, but the days and hours left to him were decreasing by the year. Perhaps he would have no time at all by the next year. Mikko couldn't let that happen to his friend. They had to find a solution before time ran out.

Mikko had finally persuaded Al to stay inside the cottage before Mikael arrived. Al resembled a small brown bear at the best of times--stout and hairy, especially with his beard as long and full as it was--but it was even more of a resemblance in winter. There was no wonder that his appearance would keep any prey animal far away.

Mikko heard the lid of the cookpot on the fire being raised. He looked away from the back window and turned around. Al had lifted the lid and was sniffing the air.

"Is this one of your potions or is it food?" Al asked.

"You can't tell by the smell yet? Taste it and see," Mikko said. "Either way, it will benefit you."

"You taste it first. I'm not taking any risks."

Mikko ladled the clear liquid from the pot and held it to Al's lips. "It's a root vegetable stock, something Granny can tolerate eating. You'll like it."

Al sipped it. "A bit tasteless, but it will do. If he eats. He hasn't lately."

"No, no, he hasn't." Mikko shook his head and hung the ladle next to the pot. There were a lot of things that were hard for Mikael to do in human shape now. Eat; wear clothing; talk. When he did talk it was mostly to Al, mostly of forest happenings. He'd talk to Al without looking at him, looking at Mikko instead but almost never speaking to him. Mikko missed his friend but his own focus was on the human world and human concerns, no matter how much time he spent in the forest gathering plants. There wasn't much he could say unless they were talking about plants they had found. Al understood the animal mind far better, even the herbivore ones.

  


It was late in the morning when the deer finally appeared in the yard behind the cottage, in between the outbuildings. His coloring, like so many of the deer in this forest, was the unearthly white of the snow around him. His eyes were bright blue, even brighter than they were in his human form. He began to emit a keening noise as he shifted, his hooves becoming hands and feet, the fine hair of the hide disappearing replaced by pale skin. The now-human form collapsed into the snow.

It was always hard for Mikko to watch Mikael's transformation in either direction. Mikael had told him how painful it was, once, and Mikko had been unable to forget it. He forced himself, every time, to watch the entire process. It was a reminder to Mikko of what was at stake if he couldn't solve the problem.

Mikko went outside and carefully picked Mikael from the frozen ground, wrapping him in a blanket as he helped him to stand. Mikael was always unsteady on his feet after regaining his shape. He leaned on Mikko's shoulder as they walked inside.

"Al has your clothes ready in the spare room, if you'd like," Mikko said. Mikael shook his head no and went to sit near the hearth.

Mikko couldn't help feeling discouraged. This was the first time Mikael had outright refused clothing instead of just never getting around to putting it on. "We have food for you, too." While Mikko had been out in the yard getting Mikael in, Al had put some of the broth into a mug and placed it on the kitchen table. Mikael could never get a grip on spoons or forks so soon after transforming, so they had been feeding him in the only way they knew how. Or attempting to feed him; Mikko wasn't sure that he'd take it.

Mikael looked at the mug a while and eventually nodded. Mikko got the mug for him and placed it into his hands. "Take it slowly. You're so thin now; is the food that scarce out there? Al said something about it. I didn't think it was such a harsh winter, but I'm not out there exposed like you are."

Mikael stared into the mug and said nothing. This wasn't like him at all; he normally would have tried to say something by then if only to see if his voice still worked.

Mikko looked at him in concern. "I was going to make some sort of acorn mash, but you had so much trouble with solid food last time." That last time was in late summer, before the rut. He hadn't shown up since then, and it was now the end of the year.

"Is he not eating?" Al asked from the spare room. "The winter isn't the worst, but it's bad, and you know how male deer are during that season. He must have been successful with the females."

That was something Mikko didn't want to think about. How many of the young deer in this forest were Mikael's children? It was a good thing that no human was allowed to hunt in the part of the forest they protected. The results of the unchecked magic on normal humans was bad enough.

Mikael finally sipped some of the broth, very slowly. "Winter, it is all right. The antler sheds are...you know...where they were last season. We did not range far. Some other odd thing out there, pointy horn, went after my hinds. Scared us all."

"I'll go get the sheds soon; thanks. That should keep us alive another season." Al still hadn't left the spare room. "The other thing, I haven't felt what that is exactly. The feeling of something wrong this fall was something I had, yes."

"You never told me about it. What if I had walked into whatever this wrong was? You know how the animals seem to flock to me. The birds weren't out of sorts during the migration." Mikko was a bit angry at Al. They usually didn't not tell each other about strangeness in the forest.

"Mikko, I don't know what it is, and if I don't know what it is and tell you, you try to go and find out what it is and you end up in trouble, and you're too valuable to the village to get into forest trouble," Al answered back with some irritation in his tone.

"It's my forest to protect too, you know."

Mikael shouted. "Stop fighting! You're making my head ache."

"We're not fighting, we're disagreeing." Why did Mikko have to tell Mikael such a blatant lie? This was a fight, something they hadn't had in ages, but at least it was over something important.

"It's a fight. Your face is angry, like before we came when you did that in games, so angry." Mikael shook his head vigorously.

He was surprised that Mikael remembered that. They never talked about the old days. They hadn't even breached the subject, even the first time Mikael had surprisingly returned two years after their arrival and transformed in front of the previous forest guardians and Mikko and Al. It was right at the end of their apprenticeships and their assumption of responsibilities and they had been given an immense responsibility indeed.

"It's not about you, Mikael," Al said. His voice was calm. "It's about whatever's going on out there. If I didn't know better, I'd say you and your ladies saw a unicorn."

"What if it's new, or it's been hidden for a while? That forest is deeper than we've ever gone into. There are things at the edges you don't know about. There are things in there I'd like to know about, but I've taken your caution to heart most of the time and don't go any deeper than you can feel." Mikko's usual puzzles were human puzzles, healing and emotion, but this was a puzzle that was far more to his taste than those.

Mikael's eyes widened. "That's the name I had forgotten. Unicorn. Yes. White like I am, shining, big, and fearsome."

"Ah." This made it even more pressing that Mikko find out how to fix Mikael's problem before it was too late. "Drink up; I'll heat up more if you need it."

"I like it cold, Mikko. I can't eat hot things anymore, I've tried, Lorinda gave it to me...she didn't know...I couldn't."

"Is that where you've been the last few moons?" Lorinda lived near the forest, too close for Al and Mikko's taste, but as she wasn't directly on the border there was little either of them could do about it. She was a few years older than Mikko, as far as he could tell, and she was as witchy as one could get without actually being a witch. Her trade was based on that, making potions that didn't work for purposes that Mikko wouldn't sell potions to do.

"Yes. During the rut...there are things I want, things I need, that I can't get here; she takes me without questions or even talk." Mikael blushed.

Mikko touched his shoulder. "I understand, only too well. Summers get interesting for us, too. I'm not angry; we just worried so much that you weren't able to change anymore."

"You keep trying to fix me. I don't know if I want to be fixed. I just want it to stop and I am so used to being what I am, that is what I am now, I think. This body doesn't feel right anymore."

Mikko felt like crying after hearing that. "They're two sides of the same coin, the shape. I can't keep you human and I can't keep you a stag. If I find something, and there is a choice, which one would you choose?"

Mikael wouldn't answer, only huddled further in the blankets. "I'm so tired. I want to go to bed. Help me up, please?"

Mikko took away his mug and helped him up, walking him the short distance to their spare bedroom. Al had gone into their bedroom, probably still aware that his presence other than his voice may be disturbing. Mikael refused to put on clothing of any sort, still, and sat on top of the bed.

"I think I can be all right, like this, with these blankets. It gets dark so early and I feel so alone at this time of year." Mikael stretched out on the bed and was soon asleep.

Mikko came in later that night and, with the light of a small candle, watched him sleep. He controlled himself tightly; he would weep in frustration if he felt it would do any good, which it wouldn't. He was angry that Mikael hadn't told either of them about his unwillingness to become human, or his drifting off to others at the edge of the wood, or anything at all important. When had his trust in them become lost? How long had it been lost?

  


When Mikko and Al awakened the next morning, Mikael was already long awake and restless. He was pacing around the main room.

"I waited for you, Mikko," he said accusingly once Mikko was up and dressed. "You're always wanting to see me go, for what I don't know, and here I am."

"Will you be back next moon?" Mikko asked as he opened the door to the yard.

"I can't really say. Next moon is next moon, and with that thing out there? Who knows?" Mikael stepped out and let the change take him.

It wasn't any easier for Mikko to watch the change in reverse, but he did see once again that Mikael was far quicker to adjust to becoming a stag than he was becoming a human. Mikael didn't leave the yard but stood there staring at Mikko staring at him through the window.

Al had come up behind Mikko after the transformation was complete. "You know, I feel him change too. I just never felt like looking at it like you do."

"You think I like looking at it?"

"No, no, I don't think that at all. I know why you do it. It's that iron sense of responsibility you've always had as long as I've known you."

Mikko stared out the window some more. Al had said something important, but he was still groggy and had trouble fixing on what for a while until it hit him. "You said you can feel Granny change, right? I think you may have mentioned that before, but it's been so long."

"Yeah. I feel him. Every time, once he's done. I can't feel what the humans are feeling but I can feel the animals if I focus really hard, or if they're ones I particularly know, and Granny's one I know."

That explained a lot about the way Mikael was when he was in deer-shape. His mind really was essentially transformed, but that may have been the solution that they had been searching for eight long years for. "If you can feel him as a deer, can you force him out of it, or can you force the human mind out of him once he's gone to deer? You've got power over some things, like driving creatures out of the forest who don't belong there, or making sure that they stay in."

"I'd honestly never thought of it before. That's actually why I don't know if any of the others we lost are in the forest as animals; they don't come around, so I don't know exactly when they stop, and they'd feel like any other animals. Granny actually doesn't feel entirely animal, not quite; he's got this extra awareness in there that I can't feel, and that's how I know it's him."

"Try it before he takes off on us. He's still looking at me and I don't think he's seen you."

"I'll try. Let me concentrate. I may need to touch him."

"I'll get my cloak on and see if he'll let me touch him first, to calm him down." Mikko had already moved towards the rack they both kept their outdoor gear on and was putting on his boots. He went into the yard, smiling, and Mikael still hadn't moved. Was he thinking about what he had said last night? Was he able to think about it?

"Come on, Granny, calm down. We're going to help you." He didn't know how calm Mikael would be once Al came out. Apparently very, as he stood still and let Al touch him.

"I'm going to start now, all right?" Al was smiling too. It was perhaps premature happiness. They still didn't know if it would work.

Mikael's scream as he transformed was the only answer they needed. Mikko hadn't ever touched him during it, but here he and Al were, holding him as his body twisted and shook, keeping on holding him as he finished changing and walked back into the house, holding him as he went into the spare room and put on the clothes that had been his to use for the past eight years, holding him as he sat on the bed shaking with tears. This would hopefully be the last time.


End file.
